Biofuels reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in comparison to fossil fuels. In the Jan. 4 issue of the journal Science, Smithsonian researchers highlight a new study that factors in environmental costs of biofuel production. Corn, soy and sugarcane come up short.

Let's say a fuel derived from biomass produces too much soot when it's burned in a combustion chamber designed for fossil fuels.

Termites -- notorious for their voracious appetite for wood, rendering houses to dust and causing billions of dollars in damage per year -- may provide the biochemical means to a greener biofuel future. The bellies of these tiny beasts actually harbor a gold mine of microbes that have now been tapped as a rich source of enzymes for improving the conversion of wood or waste biomass to valuable biofuels.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization says using more energy from wood could cut greenhouse gases and reduce poverty.

The British aid agency Oxfam has warned the European Union (EU) that its plan to use more biofuels could prove disastrous for some of the world's poorest people.

Researchers have been studying fuels from biomass for years. Now, with growing dependency on foreign oils and an energy-conscious society emerging, biofuels are fast becoming part of a fuel revolution that could reach pumps all across America.

When University of Illinois crop scientist Fred Below began growing tropical maize, the form of corn grown in the tropics, he was looking for novel genes for the utilization of nitrogen fertilizer and was hoping to discover information that could be useful to American corn producers.

The nations of Asia and the Pacific are being urged to study the issue of biofuels with greater care before deciding on how they will use their agricultural products to generate energy.

IV (intravenous) lines in a sorghum field. It's not as far-fetched as it sounds. It's one way that scientists at the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station are researching crops that may contribute to the biofuel revolution.

Researchers at Deakin University have found that diesel exhaust is far more damaging to our health than exhaust from biodiesel, the plant-based fuel.

Oklahoma State University’s sorghum-related biofuels research is taking a localized approach, with the aim of making possible the effective production of ethanol in the farmer’s own field.

Jeffrey Dean, professor of forest biotechnology in the University of Georgia Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, is spearheading a project at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute (JGI) that will greatly expand the gene catalog for pines and initiate the first gene discovery efforts in five other conifer families.